Wednesday, 24 April 2013

Regardless
of your definition of success, there are, oddly enough, a great number of
common characteristics that are shared by successful business people. You can
place a check beside each characteristic that you feel that you possess. This
way, you can see how you stack up. Even if you don’t have all of these
characteristics, don’t fret. Most can be learned with practice and by
developing a winning attitude, especially if you set goals and apply yourself,
through strategic planning, to reach those goals in incremental and measurable
stages.

Like
any activity you pursue, there are certain musts that are required to be
successful in a chosen activity. To legally operate a vehicle on public
roadways, one must have a driver’s license; to excel in sports, one must train
and practice; to retire comfortably, one must become an informed investor and
actively invest for retirement. If your goal is success in business, then the
formula is no different. There are certain musts that have to be fully
developed, implemented and managed for your business to succeed. There are many
business musts, but this article contains the more important musts from the
different sources and experts that are required to start, operate and grow a
profitable business and soon be called asEntrepreneurs.

1. Do you
have an exceedingly strong need to achieve then it is a plus to survive in the
business world. This strong need to achieve as opposed to a need to be liked or
to exercise power is a great quality of an entrepreneur.

2. Perseverance,
everyone needs it. Perhaps the most important of all the characteristics of
entrepreneurs is the ability to withstand the troubles that come with starting
a business. Beginning a new enterprise is an immensely difficult task, and as
an entrepreneur, you’ll have to stick through the storms and stress if you want
your venture to be a success. It sometimes takes years for a good idea to start
making you money, but when it does, you’ll be glad you stood strong in the face
of adversity.

3. Objectivity.
Know exactly what you want and get focused on the game. The knack to precisely
weigh and assess risks linked with a meticulous course of action, as well as
being realistic about one’s own abilities and limitations. Be objective and
never be one-sided.

4. Be wise in
terms of money but never be greedy for it will also be the cause of your
downfall. A respectful attitude toward money, but a propensity to look upon it
as a means for achieving things, or a way of keeping score in the game of
business, rather than as a thing to be sought as the end in itself. At the end
of the day money isn’t everything.

5. The
tendency to foresee developments and to make things happen, rather than waiting
to react to problems as they arise. Think beforehand. You cannot just decide
for the things present, you must be able to determine the possible
consequences.

6. Resourcefulness. The capacity to
resolve tribulations in some ways, to be able to handle things that come even
without having prior know-how to rely on as a guide. Instinct will help, and
you must also learn to trust yourself, after all, it is you who knows the
business well enough.

7. Personal relations. The
successful entrepreneur usually has an emotionally stable personality, is
cheerful, cooperative, and usually gets along well with (without necessarily
being close to) employees and associates. Besides, no man is an island, make
sure you can talk to people, you cannot work on your own, and everyone has
their part. Your business won’t run without your people.

8. Communication skills are well
developed, both in oral and written presentations. Also learn the PR skills and
learn to know how to build the rapport.

9. Technical knowledge is usually
well-rounded, and the successful entrepreneur generally is knowledgeable about
the specifics of providing their goods and services. You must know every little
job in your business.

Those who run successful
businesses possess many of the above attributes at phenomenal levels, much
beyond those of the average person. And they don’t fear failure, but are quick
to learn from it.

Now you can understand why less
than half of all startups last more than five years. Some experts argue that
everyone possesses these attributes, but they may be buried deep in the
subconscious. Their challenge is to release the negative thoughts and feelings
that are blocking the emergence, and blocking success.

Wednesday, 10 April 2013

Japan
is definitely one thebest place to travel, from Tokyo to any part of the country Japan
is truly a remarkable place to visit. Odakyu Railway has a very interesting
offer that will start January 20 this year until February 28 the same year; it
is a part of their winter campaign in Shinjuku, Hakone, Enoshima/Kamakura and
Ito. International passport holders, like myself, can pick up coupons from
Odakyu Travel Service Centers at Shinjuku and Odawara Stations and use them to
receive special discounts and commemorative goods at ‘Odakyu Department Store
Shinjuku’, ‘Shinjuku Mylord’ and other participating retailers in
Hakone,Enoshima/Kamakura and Ito. So, my family and I enjoyed Japan more
because we saved extra money and at the same time we traveled more.It allowed
us to travel freely on the Hakone Tozan Train, the Hakone Ropeway and the
Hakone Sightseeing Cruise on Lake Ashi.

We tried everything that Odakyu offered.
Because the Hakone Freepass is available at a discounted price might as well
try it, so we took advantage of it and we did not regret the experience.

There
is also a bonus, that doesn’t end there; visitors will be warmly welcomed at
Togendai terminal in Hakone with a photo shoot with a samurai and handmaiden,
free calligraphy and origami workshops and other activities for experiencing

Japanese
culture.Me and my husband also tried the special travel packages including the
Limited Express “Romancecar” ticket and accommodations in Hakone will be on
sale at great prices.

I recommend couples to try it as well. The
winter limited Hakone freepass is valid for 2 days so you can really enjoy it.
Usually you have to pay 5,000 yen for adults but today they are giving it for
only 4,100 and 1500 for children, great way to save.

You can also have “Hakone coupon book” for use
on tourist facilities and restaurants.

Monday, 8 April 2013

Valentine’s
Day is traditionally known as a day to celebrate the love between two people,
but as a business owner or manager, this holiday offers an opportunity for your
customers or clients to feel the love that you have for your ongoing business
relationship. There are several ways that you can successfully accomplish this
without the risk of being tacky. Just think of how you would show your significant
other your love and tailor it accordingly for your customer. In the past, there
have been many ways in which gratitude had been shown from multiple local
businesses. A few ways in which those businesses showed their appreciation were
thoughtful and creative.

·Valentine’s Day Cards – Shutter fly cards can be custom made
using photos of your products, staff or anything else appropriate with a
message like “We Love Your Business” or “I Hope Our Working Relationship
Continues to grow”.

·Host a Luncheon – Invite your best client or customer
to your office for a Panera Bread catered lunch just for them. This could be
for one person or an entire staff. Give a special discount on your services for
the month printed on a Valentine’s Day Card or free product samples wrapped
with Valentine’s Day festive paper.

·A Box of Custom Candy – Send your clients or customers a
specially packaged box of chocolates with your logo on the box and even
embossed on the candy itself. Chocri is an online confectioner where you can
chocolate bars to spread many thanks to your premium customers.

·Send Flowers – It is traditional and common but flowers sent to
an office to decorate the reception area always appreciated. The key is to make
them different. Teleflora offers plenty of Valentine’s Day flowers that are
very festive while still business appropriate.

·Host a Getaway – Southwest Airlines continues to offer great
“Wanna Get Away” deals to hundreds of location. Host a competition for a period
of time to gain the loyalty of many customers. You will begin to see familiar
faces. For those loyal customers, have a prize of a romantic 3 day, 2 night
vacation throughout the Valentine’s Day holiday. This is a great way to
continue to keep customers year round.

It’s
a fact that
by remembering a customer on a day other than Christmas shows that you really
consider the importance of your relationship at all times of the year. It will
help to maintain a bond through good times and those that are more trying.

Sunday, 7 April 2013

Fraud prevention is very important to
big or even smallerbusinesses. Self-storage industry is beginning
to be affected by cybercrime and it is becoming a big problem. This can be
prevented through effective training and education to make owners and managers
aware of the developing problem. Same methods that were already adapted by
cybercriminals to target other industries and some of the same methods used to
defraud businesses before digital age can be used against our industry.

Small- to medium-sized
businesses are in more risk than ever unlike before that only the most
high-profile cybercrime cases involves child victimization or Russian spies.
Although large corporations have the most up to date protection of their
systems they always tune it up because they still have been fighting online
fraud for many years. This is why smaller outfits (family-owned self-storage
facilities or even smaller chain operations) should be vigilant to what is
happening in the cyber underworld as well.

Larger companies stronger
defense made cybercriminals turn to smaller businesses as their victims. This
smaller outfits only have a small IT staff or sometimes non at all, making them
an easier target. What they should be doing is to start teaching themselves of
the latest scams and methods of today’s digital thieves.

Criminal
Minds and Methods. Cyber thieves use many various techniques to trick their
victims. Cyber criminals have the reputation that they large affect large bank
because “that’s where themoneyis.”
What self-storage owners and managers should know is that these cyber criminals
are now also targeting their industry. Now also seen on self-storage industry
is the some same methods used to target the broader real estate industry. Even
if there are few self-storage attacks that were known to public, in general
small organizations is now cyber thieves target preys.

Recently, another example of
cybercrime in real estate industry was through email messages with the goal to
recruit money mules. Money mules are simply the money launderers, their work is
to transfer the money collected from the Internet scams from the victim to the
criminal. These people most of the time are unaware of the crime they committed
because they believe what they did was just work from home opportunity.

“An international real
property agency with wide background in reselling, exchanging, buying out and
legal counseling assistance all over the USA and Canada.” This is a Spam
message that has been distributed recently, offers a part-time real estate
agent position. This is an example of a illegitimate offer rather what it do
instead is it not only involves international, organized crime, it denigrates
and erodes the integrity of true real estate professionals.

This one is another real
estate-specific scam, it involves rental properties posted online. Cyber
criminals can collect every payment to the property they do not own simply by
copying the digital information from your online listing to create their own
listing. This is actually a long time scheme and now the convenience and
ubiquity of the Internet make it easier for cons to perpetrate these crimes.

People who find it harder and
harder to make ends meet have been lured into secret shopper jobs, this happens
during the recent recession. Most of these are scams but there are also
legitimate offers on the website for the Mystery Shopping Providers Association.
In self-storage industry an example of this scam involves a re-shipping scam
where you may be persuaded over email to receive goods at your facility and
later ship them out to another address. They are taking advantage of your
innocence so you can commit a crime without you knowing so try to avoid strange
offers like the latter.

Remember that cyber criminals
are best at tricks, they prey on your sympathies and fears and you may not know
it until you literally misplaced your confidence in someone.

They also used sense of
urgency to lure you into becoming their prey. They will make you feel that you
have to respond quickly to the queries in order to get the business. Any
transactions that make you decide urgent more often than not leads to disaster,
in any decision you make always remember to slow down, take it easy and rethink
of it several times before deciding and remember, cyber criminals take
advantage of our impulsiveness.

Phishing and Malicious Spam.
Maybe the most famous, earliest and the most widespread from of scam over the
Internet was phishing of online banking credentials. the cyber criminal will
send you an authentic-looking emails, messages or link that warns you that
something went wrong to your account and you need to confirm your information
details by clicking on the link provided and logging on their account would
mean they already have your details without you realizing it. As a result, all
your authentication credentials were immediately emailed to a criminal who used
them to transfer all of the money out of the account. Self-storage isn’t spared
on this scam. Managers and their website administrators must be alert to
phishing scams so they do not fall prey to such Internet fraud.

RE/MAX brand was spoofed by
email account credential phishing and was used as scam for real estate
industry. Once homebuyers logged in their email accounts to the look-a-like
page that offers to give them access to exclusive listings but the thing is
RE/MAX is not linked to your email provider, and the victims had their email
accounts compromised.

It doesn’t matter how famous
phishing is, scam watch is very important, because today’s spam messages are
even more authentic looking and more malicious, it is harder to determine the
authenticity. It isn’t just that but now you did not have to click a link from
the email you received rather just by visiting a drive-by malware site where
they do not even need to log in or agree to download anything in order to be
infected with a banking Trojan or other malicious software. Immediately after
being infected, your vital and secret authentication credentials for banking
and other online transactions will be stolen, and you wil have no control over
your machine because it is now being controlled by unseen forces and included in
a global botnet that perpetuates more cybercrime.

The Blackhole Exploit Kit,
since this criminal toolkit was invented phishing method has become more common
over the past two years. For only $50 per day or $1,500 per year scammers can
lease this software kit.

Fraudsters can lease this
software kit for. The spammers who initiate the infection process have created
email messages that spoof over 50 well-known brands and do not contain spelling
errors or other mistakes to tip off a suspecting reader. The chart below
describes how the Blackhole Exploit Kit is used to infect you with malware in a
drive-by attack. Large organization technology departments are finding more
ways for scam watch and fraud prevention so that they can protect their
employees and systems and for the rest of us, scam watch is our own
responsibility. We must learn to be wary of links in unsolicited email
messages. Instead of clicking on the links provided, navigate to the content by
using your browser to go to the website you trust for that company. If email
account is spamming or Facebook or Twitter account is showing messages that you
did not post, the best thing you do is change your passwords.

Tips for Using Social Media While Protecting Your Online Presence.Self-storage uses social media accounts to promote
their products. And to be able to protect those accounts from invasion and
manipulation, they should take additional steps.

• If you have a professional
Internet presence, then maintain those accounts in a professional way and maintain
your personal social networking profiles separately.

• Do not fall for scam artists
who promise to deliver hundreds of “Likes” of your page for a small fee.

• Safeguard your passwords
carefully by using HTTPS and strong passwords and by using different passwords
for every site. You can find free software for password management to help you
with this.

Customer Data. “The most
attractive ‘loot’ for today’s thieves are customer data—at least for the
cyber-criminals.” This is from the article on selfstorage.com on Oct. 12, 2012,
“Cyber-crime overshadows property theft” by Mark Lusky. This loot can be
plundered from your payment system such as credit card machine or systems
compromised. This can also affect your email account such as accessed after
login credentials have been phished or obtained with malicious software, or
your business computer that has been infected.

Self-storage stores customers’
data in a digital format, PII or personal identifying information, if not well
taken cared of can be used to steal your customer’s identity. Scam watch should
be well thought of or it will create devastating fines, minimum fine for a data
breach can be $10,000 per customer.Protection through Awareness. Scam watch is
very easy in fact; a good start for this action is to self-study and to email
notifications from the FBI’s Internet Crime Complaint Center (www.ic3.gov).
This action will help you get informed, cyber criminals always has new
technology to trick on you, so it is always good to get knowledgeable to
emerging cyber threats that could affect your business.Some may find this
unnecessary but this is as important as any fraud prevention. Remember that all
software you use should also be kept current, including your operating system
(Windows or Mac OS), your browser (Internet Explorer, Firefox, Safari, etc.),
and other programs such as Adobe Reader and Adobe Flash. And disable Java in
your browser’s plug-ins section as unlatched Java contains the most
successfully-exploited vulnerabilities. It is very essential to have anti-virus
and anti-malware protection on all of your computers and to look into guard for
your mobile devices such as smart phones.

Help
From Authorities. Activities highlighted are Federal crimes and should be
reported as such this is according to the most cybercrime offenses are covered
by Title 18 of the United States Code, Section 1030: Fraud and related activity
in connection with computers. The U.S. Department of Justice website sustains
its Computer Crime and Intellectual Property Section with contacts for
reporting incidents to local, state or Federal law enforcement agencies.As the
larger banks and institutions are becoming more conscious to cyber attacks of
all kinds, self-storage industry and real estate in general in now more
appealing to cyber criminals. But since they are becoming a little bit more
conscious too and developing ways of scam prevention, cyber criminals are not
targeting small businesses that tend to have less wary employees and smaller
computer staffs. And smaller staffs should step up and find ways to defend
themselves against threat of cybercrime.

Saturday, 6 April 2013

JWFF is the largest wildlife film
festival in Asia. This year like the past years joining is free. The purpose of
the festival is to encourage international wildlife production by honoring the
very best films. The Festival aspires to strengthen worldwide networking among
wildlife filmmakers, especially those in Asiancountries. For the general public, Japan
Wildlife Film Festival aims to increase awareness of the need to protect and conserve
our natural environment by screening the films.

This year the festival will be
held on August 8, Thursday until August 11, Sunday of the same year. It will be
held at Toyama International Conference Centre, Japan. All of Toyo Japan and
the whole country are excited every year on the said festival.Nature Film
Network is this year’s organizer of Japan Wildlife Film Festival in cooperation
with Wildscreen (UK), Jackson Hole Wildlife Film Festival (USA), UNEP. Entrants
automatically grant approval for their productions to be retained by the
Festival organizer and will be shown at non-profit public screenings to promote
JWFF and charitable event to promote the conservation of nature through
wildlife films during and outside of the Festival. An admission fee may be
levied to cover venue and administration costs. The Festival organizers reserve
the right to add a voice-over or Japanese subtitle to the films selected for
those screenings. The costs will be covered by the Festival. JWFF expects all
applicants to secure music and talent rights to their films for festival
exhibition. It is the sole responsibility of the entity submitting the project
to secure permission from the copyright holder of the material in question.
JWFF will not be held responsible for any inclusion of uncleared copyrighted
materials in your film. Entries will not be returned. They will be retained in
the film library by the Festival. If you would like to have your entry
returned, it should be indicated on your entry form and the return postage
enclosed. The deadline for entry registration ended last October 31, 2012.
On-line entry is always available on JWFF official website. Judging will be
fair and square, entries will be screened and judged by the Judging Committee.
Entries selected by the committee will be nominated as finalists for awards
then finalists will be notified by the Festival office as soon as possible
after the selection. During the Festival, films will be judged in relation to
each award by the International Judging Committee. Award winners will be
announced on August 11th at the Gala Ceremony which closes the Festival. Nominees
cannot be revealed yet or shown yet to the public. Nominated films will only be
made available for public screenings during the Festival. Nominees will be
notified and asked to submit the highest quality format available with HDCam,
or DigiBeta copy of the master to produce Japanese subtitled version. One
person for each finalist film will be invited to the Festival with his/her
accommodation and travel in Tokyo and all over Japan covered by the Festival
organizer. Please note that expenses outside and to/from Japan will be paid by
the finalist. After the Festival, all works of the finalist films will be
retained by the Festival organizer, and will be shown at non-profit screenings
in line with the purposes of the Festival. In some cases, a small admission
charge may be made to cover administration costs. No film may be withdrawn from
the festival programme after its selection. The awards will be, Best of
Festival Grand, Best Animal Behavior, Best Underwater, Best Cinematography,
Best Underwater Cinematography, Best Nature and People, Best Environmental Conservation, Best Educational,
Best Animation, Best Children’s, Best Asia – Oceania, Toyama Ptarmigan Award
(by audience poll). The judging committee, at its discretion, may present
special awards to deserving films which do not qualify in any of the categories
listed above. The submission of an entry registration for the Festival implies
full acceptance of these rules. Should any matter come into dispute, only the
Japanese version of these rules will be valid and any such dispute must be
settled under Japanese law. Everyone in Tokyo Japan and in the word is
definitely looking forward to watch the Films.

Thursday, 4 April 2013

Horse DNA found in beef pasta meals in Italy
and Spain, due to this Nestle, the world’s biggest food company removed it at
once it the shelves of respective countries. The deliveries from a German
supplier was stopped it process by the Swiss-based firm. Traces of horsemeat in
beef meals was long been an issue and Nestle was not the first in a string of
major food producers to discover it. Levels of horse DNA were very low but
above 1%, said by the spokesman for the company. On the previous week the firm
said its products did not contain horsemeat. Two chilled pasta products naming
Buitoni Beef Ravioli and Beef Tortellini were pulled out by Nestle in Italy and
Spain. A frozen product for cateringbusinessesproduced in
France named Lasagnes a la Bolognaise Gourmandes will also be withdrawn. A
spokesman for the company said that Nestle had identified a problem with a
supplier from Germany.Nestle stated on their website that the supplier was
identified, he is HJ Schypke, a sub-contractor of JBS Toledo, a major meat
processing company based in Belgium.

“There is no food safety issue, but the
mislabeling of products means they fail to meet the very high standards
consumers expect from us,” the statement said. In addition to removing the
three affected products from sale, Nestle would be “enhancing our existing
comprehensive quality assurance programme by adding new tests on beef for horse
DNA prior to production in Europe”, it added. According to BBC’s Imogen Foulkes
in Geneva, the news that the world’s biggest food producer is now having to
withdraw some foods, shows the problem is far wider than previously thought
and, critics say, how dangerously unregulated the food industry has become. At
least 12 European countries were affected by the widening scandal over
mislabeled horsemeat. This includes Switzerland, where on Monday forced to
remove nine different products from its shelves. Switzerland is famous for its
broad range of organic, locally-sourced food. The company stated last Wednesday
that it had found horsemeat in its own-brand frozen lasagne produced by the
Comigel food processing company in France. Co-op now faces probable charges of
negligence from the Swiss authorities. While other meat processing firm was
also being affected as France partially lifted a production ban from Spanghero.
The French government abrogated its license last week over uncertainties that
Spanghero knowingly sold horsemeat labeled as beef, an accusation the company
discards. Unwitting workers should not be penalized, said The French
authorities. Thus the firm will be permitted to produce minced meat, sausages
and ready-to-eat meals, but not to stock frozen meat. For the moment the UK and
Germany have also both promised to step up testing of frozen food products.

Tuesday, 2 April 2013

Obama
supporter Melowese Richardson charged with illegal voting in 2008 and 2011 for
allegedly voting at least six times after admitting voting twice in the
presidential election last November. But, in an interview on a local TV
station, Richardson claims that she was worried that her vote would not count
and she was no intention to commit any voter fraud. She voted in her own name
by absentee ballot and also in person at the polls, officials charged, but
Hamilton County Prosecuting Attorney Joseph Deters said she was also charged
with voting in the name of five other people in various elections. Deters also
added in an avowal, every vote is important and every voter and candidate needs
to have faith in the system. Furthermore, this is not North Korea and the
current arraignments must let people know that this is a staid matter. Following
by the 58-year-old veteran Cincinnati poll worker now faces eight counts of
voter fraud which one is a nun. At this time, The Hamilton County Board of
Elections publicized that there was an investigation whether she voted six
times, counting her vote on behalf of her granddaughter, India Richardson, this
made Richardson tonational headlines.

But voting twice or in another
person’s name is illegal. According to the prosecutors the five other people
that Richardson voted in behalf were all relatives. Sister Marguerite Kloos
also faces one count of illegal voting. She allegedly voted in behalf of her
fellow nun as an absentee voter, but Sister Rose Marie Hewitt was a deceased
before absentee ballots were sent out. She was accused of opening Sister
Hewitt’s ballot, forging her signature and mailing it to the Board of Elections
as a vote.

Kloos, 54, serves as an associate
professor of religious and pastoral studies where she also was a dean of the
Division of Arts and Humanities at the College of Mount St. Joseph in
Cincinnati but has resigned. Kloos was not charged but faces what is known as
information, for the reason that her lawyer contacted prosecutors and she
agreed to cooperate and plead guilty.75-year-old Russell Glassop, also charged
with illegal voting for voting on behalf of his wife, who died before Election
Day. Richardson’s case was the most shocking for the possibility of repeated
votes, if proven guilty; she will face up to 12 years in prison. The Hamilton
County Board of Elections lately held hearings on cases of possible double
voting and voter fraud, part of a statewide review ordered by Secretary of
State John Husted. 88 counties were called to review complaints of fraud, as
well as voter disenfranchisement. Hamilton County prosecutors are currently
investigating three additional cases of possible voter fraud. According to the
written statement publicized by Husted, every voter must play by the rules, and
if they don’t they will be held accountable. And so it might mean fines, it
might mean detention.